Erika Swyler - The Book of Speculation

The fabric that had once decorated the wagon’s interior had been torn down, shredded and thrown about the room. Amos crouched over Bess. Hair wild, eyes sunken; his arms bore deep red scratches from where he’d clawed at himself.

“Oh,” Benno murmured. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.” He offered Amos his hand, but Amos pulled away. Benno leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor. Amos gave him his back.

For the better part of an hour, they sat in silence. At last Benno spoke. “You would not remember how you were when you first came to us. Barely here. Mostly we did not see you, and when we did,” he sliced his hand in the air and made a sound through his teeth. “ Fft. Nothing. You were an empty glass. Fragile, I thought. Then I start to see you with the small horse, and you begin to remind me of my youngest brother. And you were kind to me. I am not one whom people are often kind to. I tell myself I will look after you. When Ryzhkova begins to teach you, I thought good. ” Benno scratched the back of his head and then pounded it against the wall. “Then Evangeline.” He felt Amos’s eyes on him and a chill ran through his bones. “Ryzhkova feared her. She asked me to watch over you. Protect you.” A dry laugh came from his chest. Amos tilted his head at the sound. “And I think to myself, what could be so fearsome that would drive Ryzhkova to leave? And so I watched. And then I saw Evangeline sneaking away. Then the river died, and then the town … I am sorry.”

Silence spread between them. Amos gathered his daughter in his arms. They sat for hours until the small lines of sun that sliced through the gaps in the wagon walls stretched then faded into nothing. Bess coughed and sneezed once.

“The child,” Benno muttered. “She has lost too much.” He rose to his feet and opened the wagon door. “There have been lies, so many, and I have been a part of them. I am sorry, friend. I will find Ryzhkova for you. Her daughter, Katerina — Ryzhkova would go to her. I will find her and tell her what has happened. She will come back. You will work again and teach your girl. I will do this for you. You will not be alone.” When he left he pulled the wagon door shut behind him. Benno was gone with the morning.

Amos’s time was filled with secret work. Bess had become silent, had not uttered a sound since the night they’d returned from the ocean. For hours on end Amos sat in front of his daughter, trying to remember what Evangeline’s voice had felt like when he’d pressed his ear against her breast. When he attempted sound all that emerged was a rough scratching. He held Bess to his chest in hope that the resonance of a beating heart might stir her to sound. It did not.

The cards slept in their box, untouched. They were marked by all that had passed between them — Ryzhkova, him, Evangeline. He would have to cleanse the cards repeatedly, how much he could not be certain, and to cleanse the cards would take the last of Evangeline away, the piece of her that still lived in them. It had been his mistake to not clear them once Ryzhkova had left. He’d only wanted to hold on to the woman who had taught him. The remainder, her lingering fear, had mixed with the cards and become a curse that twined with their fate like a braid. He kissed the top of Bess’s head. He would not teach her to speak as he did.

The Wild Boy cage reappeared. Fall turned and they pushed north, hoping to make New York before the weather changed. The Les Ferez cart was painted green and adorned with depictions of a grotesque Wild Man.

* * *

In a clearing north of Burlington they made camp under the shelter of ancient oaks. The stop was unscheduled but the troupe was weary; being shorthanded made travel more difficult. Peabody approached Amos’s door. It opened a scant crack. A single dark eye looked out.

“My boy, it is time you work. It will be good for your spirit and good for your girl to see you happier. The old act,” here he coughed. “It will be as it was before. I think you will be fine at it.” The door opened no further. Peabody chewed his bottom lip, causing his beard to bristle. “We got on well once, you and I. Please, let’s do so again. We’ll start anew.”

The door slammed shut.

Hours after Peabody had knocked, Amos emerged from the wagon, child in arms. He was wiry like a stray dog and his clothing fell from him. He crossed the camp and eyes followed him, his every move of interest. He rapped at Peabody’s door and was greeted at the first knock. Curly brimmed hat askew, Peabody smiled.

“Fine to see you out, good lad. And with our little girl looking every bit a beauty, she. Quite the—”

Amos thrust Bess at Peabody’s chest. He looked a long moment at his daughter before turning on a rotted boot heel and walking back across the camp. Peabody took Bess in his arms and watched as Amos continued past the last wagon and toward the deep of the woods. By the time he thought to send Meixel after him, Amos had ventured far enough that Peabody lost sight of him. The infant looked up at his crinkled blue eyes, clenched a fist around the pointed tip of his beard, and cooed.

“Well, most wonderful girl,” he said in the softest voice he could manage, “what have we here?”

In the wood among the branches, Amos divested himself of shoes. His bare feet welcomed the ground, toes digging into loam. His coat followed, discarded on a briar, then the tattered neck cloth and shirt were gone, until only skin separated Amos and the forest. It was curious to see how pale his body had grown under years of clothing. His deep brown hands looked like they belonged to another person. He walked for hours, scrambling and climbing. He held on to the piece of ribbon, winding it around his thumb, petting it. He picked his way over tree roots and stones, toe to heel, silent. Where three high rocks clustered, forming a small peak, he stopped. Rippling indicated a nearby stream, and in its sound he heard whispers of Evangeline. You are home. I am your home.

He scaled the boulders, feet digging for purchase in craggy ledges, fingertips hooking into crevasses until he perched atop the tallest rock. His breathing slowed as he came to rest. He sat as he had in the days before Evangeline, Ryzhkova, or Peabody, in the days when he’d crept into the house where he’d been born. The sun began its descent, making long shadows. A short huffing owl call echoed off the rocks. He sat. Amos’s shadow mixed with the trees and bushes, shades black as her hair. His breath slowed further until it became that of the world around him — a low breeze, nothing more. He became a part of the woods and the air, and lines defining beginnings and ends softened. Then the sorrow stopped. One moment a young man sat atop an outcropping of boulders, the next he was gone.

* * *

In coming days Melina found Amos’s clothing and the ribbon from Evangeline’s dress. She offered them to Peabody, who abruptly ordered them destroyed. Though Melina told him it was done, she stowed them in a traveling trunk for Bess once she grew older. It should not be as if they had never been. Every child needed to know her parents.

Peabody cared for Bess as his own. He doted on her and began to think of her as the crowning achievement of his years of captaining the menagerie. He ensured that she was taught to swim. Bess took to the water as if made from it. He delighted to see that the girl had a remarkable capacity to hold her breath. In evenings he began sketching plans. Alongside columns of figures, a diving tank took shape in brown ink. Glass. If only they could manage glass. Bess’s hair grew long and black like her mother’s. Her eyes stayed wide like Amos’s.

At her fifth birthday he presented her with a lacquered box adorned with intricately painted figures — a prince and a firebird.